CLIO model

Description

The CLIO model comprises a global, free-surface Ocean General Circulation Model (OGCM) [Deleersnijder and Campin, 1995] coupled to a comprehensive sea ice model [Fichefet and Morales Maqueda, 1997]. The OGCM is a primitive equation model adopting the usual set of assumptions, i.e., the hydrostatic equilibrium and the Boussinesq approximation. The sea ice model has a representation of both thermodynamic and dynamic processes. A relatively sophisticated parameterization of vertical mixing [Goosse et al., 1999], a parameterization of the effect of meso-scale eddies [Gent and McWilliams 1990] as well as a parameterization of dense water flow down topographic features [Campin and Goosse, 1999] are included in the latest version of the model. A 3-layer model, which takes into account sensible and latent heat storage in the snow-ice system, simulates the changes of snow and ice thickness in response to surface and bottom heat fluxes. The variation of ice compactness due to thermal processes is a function of the energy balance of the surface layer in the region occupied by leads [Fichefet and Morales Maqueda, 1997]. For calculating ice dynamics, sea ice is considered to behave as a viscous-plastic continuum. At the ice-ocean interface, the sensible heat flux is proportional to the temperature difference between the surface layer and its freezing point and to the friction. The ice-ocean stress is taken to be a quadratic function of the relative velocity between ice and the uppermost level of the ocean. Considering salt and freshwater exchanges between ice and ocean, brine is released to the ocean when ice is formed, while freshwater is transferred to the ocean when sea ice or snow melts. For more details about the coupling see Goosse and Fichefet [1999].

Description of the CLIO model version 3.0 (pdf)

Clio 3.0: Description of some routines (pdf)

Contacts

Hugues Goosse

Related people

Marie-France Loutre, Thierry Fichefet

References

• Campin J.M., and H.Goosse, 1999. A parameterization of dense overflow in large-scale ocean models in z coordinate. Tellus 51A, 412-430.
• Deleersnijder, E., and J.-M. Campin, 1995. On the computation of the barotropic mode of a free-surface World Ocean model, Ann. Geophys. 13, 675-688.
• Fichefet, T., and M. A. Morales Maqueda,1997. Sensitivity of a global sea ice model to the treatment of ice thermodynamics and dynamics, J. Geophys. Res., 102(12), 609-646.
• Fichefet T., and H. Goosse, 1999. A numerical investigation of the spring Ross sea polynya. Geophysical Research Letters, 26(8), 1015-1018.
• Gent P.R. and J.C. McWilliams, 1990. Isopycnal mixing in ocean general circulation models. J. Phys. Oceanogr. 20, 150-155.
• Goosse H., E. Deleersnijder, T. Fichefet and M.H. England, 1999. Sensitivity of a global coupled ocean-sea ice model to the parameterization of vertical mixing. Journal of Geophysical Research 104(C6), 13681-13695.
• Goosse H., and T. Fichefet, 1999. Importance of ice-ocean interactions for the global ocean circulation: a model study. Journal of Geophysical Research 104(C10) 23337-23355.